2009/6/10 Hk kng hk.kng@web.de:
Wouldn't it be the most obvious way to get additional input to include the various graphic labs directly in the process? For example, the German Grafikwerkstatt (by far not as good as our french colleagues!) has a dedicated page "Grafikwünsche" at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Grafikwerkstatt/Grafikw%C3%BCnsche We're about twenty persons with differing skill levels who look after that page.
If a request comes in at such a place and it is appropriate for the Greenspun project, wouldn't it be nice to feed it directly into the flow, thus giving the local graphicists and the person who asked for the illustration a chance to help, to evaluate, to look for other pictorial sources etc. If the request concerns one of the more established fields of knowledge, where big project groups (on de called "Redaktion") are available, you could even ask them for evaluations.
Closer involvement with the graphics groups is definitely a good idea, but a big concern I have is about "competing" with volunteer motivation. If you start involving money in things that previously volunteers had some other motivation to do, it can screw things up and actually reduce the volunteer motivation, make people feel disillusioned. How do you think we could avoid that?
Brianna